WELL, IT'S NOT TOOTSIE'S GREENHOUSE

Hi Everyone..... I thought I'd give you a look at what I've been up to lately. With the onset of shorter days and colder temperatures, this year I decided to take in all of the potted and hanging plants that I could fit in this little space of our enclosed back porch. I'm not sure if this room will be warm enough to keep them from freezing, since it isn't heated, but I'm giving it a try anyhow, and hoping for the best.I thought I'd show you our Camellia, that is in bloom outside of the porch first. Notice all the buds, it's much more than we've had in the past.

Next, we step inside the porch and you can see the Geranium, I think it looks better now than it did all summer. It has more flowers and the leaves are much greener. I hope I'm as lucky with it as Tootsie was with one she's had for six years. The Boston Fern to the right is one of three I bought as soon as the weather turned warmer, and the girl at the Garden Center told me it was the right time to hang it out on our back porch. We got frost a few days later and all three ferns looked very bad, this one the worse of the three. Now it has turned out to be the one that's doing the best.

This next little beauty is Pentas or Star Clusters. We had two but one did better than the other. See my turtle peeking around the corner. Poor thing is still waiting for a new eye. His left one clouded over and I couldn't find a place to buy a new one unless I ordered more than I wanted to buy. So he's still waiting. :( Ahhh, now here is a story......This little vine is called Ipomoea, or Sweet Caroline. It is said that it takes full sun, but it didn't do well at all in the sun and I thought it had died. I took it out of the sun and put it in the shade, in a matter of weeks it grew beautiful leaves and flourished. I love vines and hope that it does well.

This is one of the Red, New Guinea Impatiens. It's one of two we had this year on our larger, back porch. The other one did very well up until about two weeks ago, and then it started to die. I told my husband to take it behind the garage and dump it out. When he did, he found that frogs were living in the pot, so he just left it for them to stay in. This other one, pictured below, didn't flower as much thru the summer, but has always had nice leaves and I thought I'd bring it in to see how it would do. I can remember seeing one in a greenhouse, in the dead of winter, that was in full bloom and doing very well.

Pictured here are some of our hanging plants. My husband bought the two Bridal Veils on a trip to Pennsylvania. He often stops in a green house, on his trip, owned by the Amish. He took care of those two plants all summer and would take them down every couple of weeks and let them soak in the frog pond. I'd get annoyed at that, because it left the ends of the plants all slimy, but he bought them, so I just let it go. :(

I had to give you a close up of my, now dried and spray painted (it died), Bonsai Tree and my little figurines. I've had them for years and I just love them. There are a few more, but these two are my favorites.

Another picture of some of the hanging plants.

Now this is my Pride and Joy......My Avocado Tree that I grew from a seed. We've been bringing it in the house every winter, but it lost all of it's leave last year and I thought it had died. But not wanting to give up on it, we put it out under the arbor when it got warmer and it sprouted all new leaves and even a new branch. I'm afraid I hover over this one.

Here is another picture, do you notice anything?????????? It's something else that I think is fantastic!!!!!!!!!

Okay....... did you notice this in the picture?

Last year this double pane window cracked, but the more I looked at it the more I liked it. I've often thought that if I knew how to crack more of them, that I'd love to add some more. But I'm not sure I want to give it a try, I'm not that brave.

Here is another view of it, maybe you can see the beauty that I see in it. Isn't it funny how some 'accidents' in life just turn out to be one of the best things that ever happened.

I'd like to know, have you had something happen to you that at first seem bad, but turned out to be something good? Please leave me a note and let me know.